


Survivor, Soldier

by betaturtle



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Batarians, Colonist (Mass Effect), Eventual Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Gen, Mindoir, Sibling Rivalry, Teenage Shepard, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-01-31 15:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12684387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betaturtle/pseuds/betaturtle
Summary: When the slavers attack Mindoir, Shepard's life is changed forever. Without her family, she is alone in the universe with only one goal in mind: revenge. "The Edge of the Universe" is a Mass Effect prequel that follows teenage Shepard as she grows from survivor to soldier.





	1. Chapter 1

Behind the trees, a pale sun was spreading out across the curving plain of casaka that stretched from the forest down about twenty acres to the river. The leaves had just turned a molted brown like the new feathers of a baby bird. They would be ready for a harvest soon, the largest anyone had ever seen.

She gnawed on her own stalk, eyes closed, back pressed up against the bark of a tall joa, arms clasping her bb-gun, a replica of the Storm II her father used for hunting, and listened. They were coming. She could hear them rustling about through the leaves, tiptoeing across the new tilled soil, forgetting to measure their breathes, pushing at the hard leaves instead of ducking below them, rustling like pyjaks. 

She smiled to herself. Amateurs. 

She stilled her own breath and tried to pinpoint a location the way her older brother had taught her. One at 5 o'clock, the other at 8. They were trying to ambush her. She readied herself and crouched down low, counting as their rustling got closer, waiting for them to finally push their way out of the field and give her a clean shot. 

A few hours ago she might have fired wildly into the bushes, hoping the spread would down one of them before they knew what was happening. But that was a strategy she couldn't afford. She was down to her last few clips. 

She had to make them count.

She heard her opponents take their final steps through the crops, heard the rustling stop, heard her opportunity arrive. She took a breath and tied to still her racing heart. She raised her gun, whipped around, and darted out from behind the tree, firing into the oncoming forces. The first few shots caught the figure at her left in the gut, and he let out an anguished cry, doubling over to clutch at his stomach and falling to the dirt. The second figure continued gaining ground, firing wildly in her direction. His missed shots dug into the dirt, shooting mud up into her face and blocking her view. 

She ducked back behind her tree, stealing a few seconds to pop in another clip and give her opponent time to duck behind cover. She spat the pulpy leaf she'd been chewing out onto the ground and rubbed it in with the toe of her boot. She knew he wouldn't risk an ambush; he was too nervous, too young, and too afraid of the pain. She had time now. A quick peek around her tree confirmed that he had stationed himself behind a boulder. She could barely see the top of his makeshift helmet, bobbing up and down as he heaved, trying to catch his breath. 

She smiled to herself. A standoff. She pulled the scope up to her eye and positioned the barrel comfortably in the crook of a branch. Letting out a long, slow breath, she put her finger to the trigger, waiting.

A sudden pop came from behind her, and a pellet clipped her cover. Bark flung into her eyes, and her shot went wide, flying uselessly into the evening air. A second pop flared, and a sharp pain wrenched itself into her shoulder blade, reverberating down into her arm. She gulped down a cry, the tears stinging in the back of her eyes, and cursed. Her lungs burned from the impact, and she let out a dry, rasping cough. From somewhere up above her came a familiar laugh.

"You need to watch your six, kiddo," her older brother said as he clambered down the joa, his bb strapped across his back.

She coughed again and stood up. Her lungs felt raw, but there was no way in hell she was letting him see the pain he'd caused her. Instead, she crossed her arms in front of her and shifted her weight onto one hip, glowering. 

"That's no fair, Shepard," she said. "We agreed, no sniping." 

He walked up to her, laughing and whacked her on the back a few times. The long muddy stripes Shepherd had painted down his forehead had been smudged at some point during the firefight and now looked less like the fierce colony markings of a Turian and more like someone had shoved his face into the dirt.

"Like hell, we said no sniping," he said. "You're just a sore loser."

The boy she'd shot earlier, her youngest brother Emory, had gotten up and was walking towards them, a hand still clutched at his stomach. "That hurt. Why'd you have to go and do something like that for?"

"Stop being a baby," the girl shot back. She pulled her bb gun close to her chest. "This game is stupid. You're all cheaters."

"Oh, come on," James, her middle brother, yelled from behind his rock. "It's not like you didn't pull that pyjak trap on us near the lake."

"We shook on it, assholes. No hollering, nothing past the fence, and no sniping," she said. She stared pointedly at Shepherd who threw up his hands and grinned out the side of his mouth.

"I didn't shake on nothing," Emory said, mostly to himself. James threw a clod of dirt at his head, missing widely.

She shot a withering glare at the two younger boys and began walking towards their farmhouse. They had cheated, but she should have known better.

She had been playing war games since she was ten and prided herself in her ability. The tactics, the crack of a bullet as it rushed passed her, the rush of adrenaline when a maneuver went exactly as planned, it all made sense to her. She was good, great even, but Shepard was better. As the oldest, he had practically invented the game, creating tactical diversions and sinister plots with the neighborhood children, dragging first her, then James, and finally Emory into the mix as they aged into it. He'd taught her how to hold a gun, how to scout for enemies, how to set a trap. 

For six years she had been running through that forest, finding her marks, and for six years, no matter what side she played on-Turian or Human-she never managed to shoot him. Not once. 

Her hands were clenched at her sides as she stomped up the path, thinking back on her mistakes, cursing herself for yet another error. Of course Shepard would be above her. He was always above her, two heads taller, better, stronger, faster, smarter. He always knew her weak spots, knew how to make her lose focus, knew how to beat her at whatever game they played. They were all Shepards, of course, but he was The Shepard. The golden child, the prodigy. He was going to get off this rock and see the world. Make the family proud.

The dirt had become soft and muddy with the evening dew, sucking at the bottoms of her boots and slowing her progress. Her mother would be upset. Between the new bruises, the hour, and the mud that had somehow embedded itself into her coveralls, there was no way she was getting through the night without a lecture: she was getting too old for this; she was getting to be a lady; she had to start being more serious; why couldn't she be like the other girls.

The lectures never hurt her so much as the truth behind them. She was going to be a farmer, just like her mother and father, just like her younger brothers, and once she was, there was no point in knowing how to handle a firearm or flank an enemy. No point in learning how to aim for the chest, not the head, or how to keep her gun clean. She would stay on Mindoir, waiting for holos from her older brother and the stories of adventure they would bring; she would be safe and quiet forever.

Shepard was leaving for Alliance training next year. He'd already signed up and was just waiting for his birthday before packing off. Her family had protested, but even she could see it was for show. Everything about Shepard looked out of place on their little colony. He was too tall, too pale, and too restless. While her younger brothers had always loved helping with the crops, driving the tractor, setting pipelines and monitoring water flow, Shepard seemed itchy, forgetting his chores in order to push toy starships through the air. And yet, her parents never seemed disappointed in Shepard. They saw the same life for him that everyone else did, and loved him for it.

She shook the thoughts from her head and snatched up another casaka leaf, popping it into her mouth. The taste was still coppery, almost bitter, but the chewing was relaxing. The night had chilled, and she started to notice her breath manifesting in front of her like the tobacco from her father's cigarettes. 

Up ahead, the house had flickered into view. The lights were already on, and the windows stood almost garish against the dark background of stars and planets and vast pockets of universe that had crept up behind it. She slowed to watch for the blinking lights of starships, allowing each of her brothers to pass her in a cool puff of air. First James, then Emory.

A hand came up to rest on her shoulder. She didn't turn, but let it sit there, unmoving. "Your mouth's all purple" Shepard said.

She scrunched up her face, but said nothing.

"God, I hate that stuff," he continued. "I can never understand why we spent twenty years and millions of dollars to grow plants on a rock in the middle of nowhere. I just don't get it. It's idiotic."

A sense of pride and anger reared itself up in the back of her brain. She spat but didn't say anything.

"I know that mom and dad have been doing this forever, James and Em like it well enough, but at a certain point I wonder why anyone would choose this when there's so much else out there." He waved a hand at the universe and looked down at her. "You know?"

"Yah, us country bumpkins are real idiots for wanting to stay here where it's nice and quiet and we don't get shot at. Super idiotic," she said.

He looked at her, eyes squinted slightly and head cocked to the side. "You don't mean that," he said. "And don't even pretend like you do. I've known you your whole life, Kiddo. Don't bullshit me."

"I'm sorry that not everyone can be perfect like you, Shepard," she said, coldly. She avoided his gaze, choosing instead to focus on her breath as it hung in the air. He ran a hand over his hair.

"You see that star over there?" he asked, pointing. "That's Sol. Earth and Mars and Venus. There's Grissom, Century, Maskim Xul. And, way back there beyond the Far Rim is the edge of the galaxy." He pointed vaguely and with too much speed for her to see anything properly. "Not the edge of the universe, mind you. Just the galaxy."

"I know all this," she said, spitting again. He was teasing her. They'd been taught the star systems, the homeworlds, the solar systems in school. She suddenly felt as if the vacuum of space was pulling at her, taunting her with vast lightyears of distance, ages and eons of time, reminding her of her smallness, her weakness. 

There was a time when she would have tried to reached out and grab at the stars, pull them towards her own orbit, but that was before she'd realized her fate. Instead, she crossed her hands over her chest and stared silent. Shepard would see it all, and she would be stuck here, listening to his stories. She tried to shrug his hand off her shoulder, but he didn't budge.

"What we can see is just the tiniest part of what the universe has to offer. Out there, there's a whole lot of space and a whole lot of stars." He looked at her. "Why would you ever want to stay here, when you know you could be out there?"

"You don't know…" she started, angrily, but he just laughed.

"You're not listening to me," he said. He took his hand from her shoulder and started walking ahead of her. "I guess I'm just trying to say that I understand how frustrated you are. But, you don't need to be. It's a great big universe out there. There's room for more than one Shepard."

She shook her head and watched as he walked on into the darkness.

Once the tramping of his feet had receded and the brown of his hunting jacket had begun to blend in with the night sky, she raised her bb-gun to her eye one last time and shot him. Right in the shoulder blade.

To his credit, he didn't cry out. He stumbled mid stride, flipped her the bird, and then kept right on walking. The joy of her victory ebbed, but only slightly. He had deserved it, had taunted her with the promise of freedom and stars that she would never see, and he deserved it. She let her arms fall and the gun rest at her side and waited for her brother to enter the house. She was not looking forward to the reception she would receive and much preferred to let the night air whistle down her neck for a few more moments than trudge into the harsh light of their home.

To the left and right, the distant farmhouses of her neighbors seemed to flicker, and she considered for a moment running across the cool, dark fields to the shelter of some other home.

A knot of pride and disgust with herself had worked its way into her throat, and she felt as if she was choking. She hadn't bargained for that. Winning was not supposed to feel that way.

A trallar croaked his discontent as she walked past. The loud rasp was soon followed by another, and another. For the first time, she was forced to notice the wary thrum that echoed through the air. Nights on Mindoir were characterized by their quiet, their stillness, and the occasional chirp of some undiscovered insect. But something was off. The animals were all awake, too loud. There seemed to be a crackling noise just beyond hearing range. Like the idea of crackling had seeped into her brain. Some secret instinct was telling her to run away.

Ahead of her, the lights in the windows flickered. A sudden boom rippled across the lawn, followed by the sounds of pounding feet. And bullets. She knew the sound anywhere. Two more shots sounded, followed by a long scream. The front door burst open. Shepard ran out. Behind him, she could see the fire that had already begun consuming her living room.

"Run!" Shepard yelled. "Batarians. Run!"


	2. Chapter 2

So she ran. Another shot fired, and for the second time that day her shoulder burned. Her bones shook, and she felt the heat of her own blood begin to seep into her shirt. Confusion and fear grappled for control of her mind. Shephards feet were pounding against the dirt behind her. A shot flew past her face.

"Get to the fields! We can lose them in there,” Shephard yelled.

She cut right, and ran as fast as her legs would carry her, diving into the casaka, ignoring the the leaves that beat against her her arms, legs, and face. She fought to slow down, to ignore her instinct to punch and kick her way through the crops and instead to keep quiet. Keep calm. Blood thumped in her ears as she finally came to a stop.

The deep bellowing of the Batarian dialect echoed through the night. She had never learned the language, but she knew the sound of taunting. And that's what they were doing.

"Don't listen to them. Don't even listen." Shepard whispered. She spun to face him.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"They had mom and dad trapped by the time I got inside. James too. Shock collars, the works. Definitely slavers. Emory… they shot Emory. He didn't make it out"

She couldn't find the words to respond, felt a heaving in her stomach. She wanted to wretch. "Oh, god, Shep. What do we do?"

"Shit," he said catching sight of her shoulder. "Shit." He pulled off his t-shirt and whispered the swear again, balling it up against the wound. "You have to staunch the bleeding."

She grabbed it from him and pressed it to her shoulder without looking. She didn't have to see it to realize that she was loosing blood, fast. Her mind was already slightly groggy, as if each thought were heavy, her mind made of molasses and smoke. The only thing that felt sharp was her fear. "What do we do? Oh, god. They'll find us," she asked. She did not have the time to be ashamed of her fear.

"You have to stay here. Stay here, and stay quiet."

"Wait, what about you?"

"I'm going back for them, for Mom and Dad and James.”

"Shep," she said. “Don’t. What if they get you too?”

"I've got to. But, don't worry. You'll be safe. But you have to stay here where it’s safe. Don’t leave no matter what. You wait for me, you hear? Don't… Don't…" he started, grasping for words. He finally pulled her into a hug, jostling her bullet wound. She stifled a cry. "Watch your six, Kiddo. I'll be right back."

She nodded, clutching his shirt to her shoulder and watched as he whipped back the way they had come.

Above the line of crops, she could see plumes of smoke--hundreds of them--billowing up into the night sky. The screams of her neighbors echoed periodically. She felt helpless, was helpless. She had lost her gun somewhere back in the underbrush. She was bleeding out. She was frozen, and she had let Shepard go alone.

She stood there, frustrated, willing her feet to move, to follow after him. But they wouldn't listen. Instead they collapsed beneath her. She curled into a ball and felt the tears come over her.

"I'm going to die," she whispered to herself, over and over again, trying to drown out the sound of the screams. "I'm going to die. I'm going to die."

Everything they said about her was true. She didn't deserve freedom, couldn't handle it the way Shepard could. She was too small, too scared, and too goddamned chicken shit. She didn't even deserve the name, Shepard. She shivered against the night air, unable to focus on anything except the fear and the pain. Minutes went by like that. Hours, maybe years, until the screaming had stopped, and the sun began to peak up over the horizon, and the bleeding had stopped. In the morning light, she could almost convince herself that this was a dream. That she’d fallen asleep. That this wasn’t Shep’s bloodstained shirt against her shoulder. 

Slowly, she picked herself up, trying to kick off the pins and needles that attacked her arms and legs. It wasn’t a dream, but maybe things were still all right. Shephard hadn’t come back like he’d promised but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he was just too busy helping everyone else. She imagined him, bruised and battered, but triumphant, helping the neighbors put out their fires, patching Emory up, helping, just like he always did. She had to get back to the farm, had to find him. 

The bleeding had stopped and, though the fingers on her right hand were pale and cold, she could still move them, and she counted that as a small win. She pushed her way warily back through the casaka, stopping every few moments to listen for the sound of Batarian voices, maybe even the voices of her own family. But there was nothing. By the time she made it out, she could feel the heat of the morning sun beating down on her neck.

The farmhouse no longer existed in any form that could be called a house. The charred remains of her bedroom had collapsed into the living room, and several walls had shriveled down to ash-as if they had simply given up on the idea of carbon bonds. The smell of smoke seeped into her skin.

By virtue of luck and distance, the barn remained untouched. She ran to it, making a wide ark around the remains of the house, avoiding the waves of heat that still radiated. Beside the ashes, the barn looked bright, almost cheery, like a postcard from earth. The paint was untouched and the wide doors were flung open to let in the sun.

She ran to the barn and burst in, yelling, "Shepard! Shepard, I'm back! Shep! Where are you? We lived!"

The animals had been released; the gates to their pens stood open. She peered in each one, hoping to find her siblings hiding behind bales of hay, but each one revealed nothing. "Mom! Dad! James!" She paused a second waiting for responses. "Emory?"

A stall door creaked open to her right, and Shepard fell through it onto the floor. He was covered in soot and blood, red and black streaking across his body. She rushed to him, and rolled him over onto his back. "Shepard? Oh, god. What happened? Talk to me. Are you hurt? Are you ok?"

He looked at her, his eyes half closed, and drooping on one side. "Hey, Kiddo." He smiled. "You made it."

She smiled back, feeling the tears return to her eyes. "You did too, Shep. We both did. But, where's everyone else? What happened?"

"I couldn't save them. I…" he coughed red into his palm. "The Batarians… I wasn't, couldn't…"

"Hey," she interrupted. "No, no. You could. You did. I saw you go back."

He coughed again, and looked at her. "I wasn't fast enough." His eyes began to droop lower.

"Don't say that." She pulled him into her lap. "Stop. Don't say that. You… you're going to fix this. Like you always do. We just have to get you some help. Some medigel and some stitches and you’ll be just fine.”

But it was hard to believe her own words. His breath came out shakily, lacerations covered his body, and she could tell by the way his arm hung awkwardly from his body that it was broken. 

"I think I'm done fixing things."

"Stop."

"You've got this, now." He laughed, dryly.

"Stop, stop stop."

"There has to be at least one Shepard here to save the universe. Right?"

"I can't do this alone, Shep. I'm not like you. I can't be brave like you. I hid. I ran and hid. You went back."

He didn't respond, and she shook him. "Wake up, Shep! Wake up. We've got.. we've got to get mom and dad. We've got to go now." She leaned down, putting her forehead on his, listening to his ragged breathing slow. "I need you Shep. I can't do this without you. I need you."

But he didn’t respond. Her eyes were all out of tears, but she cried just the same, her breath hitching as she sobbed. She waited until she could no longer see the rise or fall of his chest. His eyelids no longer shuddered. His body had become heavy, painfully so, but she would not let it go. Instead, she hooked her arms under his armpits and held him to her chest, whispering.  
"It'll be alright. Please, it'll be alright."

She wasn't sure how how long she’d held him there, wasn’t sure how much time passed until Shepard's body had gone cold, but it was enough for her to realize she was alone. No-one else was going to save her. The air was filled with a deadening stillness, a sickly silence that was interrupted only by the faint crackling of the morning dew meeting the night's dwindling fires.

She had to get a beacon out. Had to get help. She slowly pushed her brother's stiff body off and moved to rest his back against the barn wall. If not for the paleness of his skin, he almost seemed to be resting, laying his head against the barn after a long day's work, trying to hide from the chores that had piled up behind him. She leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.  
"I'm sorry Shepard," she said. "I'm so, so sorry."

She stood, her bones aching, and crept to the open door of the barn. The Batarians were probably gone—their hunting style did not involve lingering—but she couldn't be sure. The only comm powerful enough to reach beyond their atmosphere was at the local dry goods store. Mindoir was mostly self-sustaining now that the crops were bearing fruit, and ships passed by only rarely to resupply the outpost with munitions, spare parts, and the tools to mend their water filters and farming equipment. Four miles away as the crow flies. Walking would have taken her over an hour, and she didn't have that kind of time.

Beyond the barn doors, she could see the family truck parked in the driveway, blackened by smoke, but mostly untouched. She ducked down low and made a dash for it. Nothing stirred. The fires crackled, her only company. With a quick breath she pulled open the door and shoved herself into the driver's seat. She was not a very good driver. Never had been. Her father had spent hours beside her in the passenger seat, patiently trying to coax her into traveling over a straight line, teaching her to navigate, to pull gently on the clutch, to make sure the jets that propelled them over difficult obstacles were delicately handled, but she could never get the hang of it. She was too rough with the wheel, too heavy with her foot. At least there was no need for finesse now. Only speed.

The key sat in the ignition. Mindoir was sparsely populated. Twenty-two families, some day laborers, and a small research outpost with a few scientists made up the majority of the town, and theft was never a major concern. Doors and windows were left unlocked and children were left to their own devices for much of the day. It was lonely and claustrophobic at the same time, but now she was only grateful. 

She turned the key and listened as the engine revved up, shifted into drive, then placed her foot on the pedal and pushed it down hard, tearing up onto the road. Her heartbeat was like a machine gun as she sped down the main dirt road, praying that the noise would not attract any notice.

With each burning house that passed by, she wondered. Maybe there were survivors. More like her who had hidden and escaped. She wanted to pull over and check. To see if the Chens and the Smiths and the Bhatias had survived, but fear kept her tires straight. Fear and a deep, terrible knowledge: no one escaped the Batarians. No one but her.

She pulled up to the store, and almost fell out of the car in her rush to get inside. The building was riddled with bullet holes, and the window glass was shattered. A smear of blood ran down the steps and across the dirt, but the structure itself seemed mostly intact. As she pushed through the door, she saw its contents scattered about the floor. A barrel of garden tools had fallen and scattered its contents, the shelves had been emptied, and a thin mist of flour floated in the air, she coughed as she picked her way across the debris-ridden floor and behind the counter. Below it, sat a glowing blue console. Beautiful. Intact.

She fell to her knees as she logged in. It wasn’t encrypted or even password protected--thanks again to the relative sparseness of the planet’s population. And she quickly navigated to the ship to shore radio beacon. Thankfully the wireless connection still held, and she began to type out a quick message, the only one she could think of: SOS. 

They'd been taught that in school since kindergarten, like a mantra. When she was much younger, she had broken her foot climbing trees with her brothers, and instead of crying, she had simply yelled SOS at the top of her lungs. Her family still told that story every once in a while, over dinner. Had told that story.. Would never tell that story again. 

She bit back tears and continued to tap out the message across the keyboard. SOS, SOS-Save our ship, Save our souls, Save one last, fucking Shepard.

She pressed another button, and allowed the message to play on repeat, projecting out across the stars, hoping against hope that someone would recognize it. Her eyes slowly began to close, the weight of the night, of her family’s deaths, of her wounds pulling her into a dreamless sleep. She awoke to static.

"Hello? Hello. This is the SSR Bergen, do you copy? Hello, we've received your distress signal. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Anderson of the SSR Bergen. We've received your distress signal. Is anyone down there?"

Her heart felt like it was about to beat out of her body. She scrambled to her knees, and grabbed the microphone, trying to push the words out between ragged breaths. "Yes. Yes. I copy. I'm here. The Batarians… everywhere. They got everyone… Fires, guns… they… they killed everyone."

"Are the Batarians still there? Are there Batarians still on Mindoir?"

"Don't know," she said. "I don't.. I don't think so."

"Good. We're pinpointing your position now. Should be down there at about eleven hundred hours. Do you know how many survivors?"

She spared a moment to look out the front window at the sprawling fields of burnt crops and the ruins of her neighbor's houses. "One," she said. "I think just one."

She heard the man on the other line pause before continuing, his voice more cautious than it had previously been. "How… how old are you?"

"Sixteen," she said.

The line went silent again. She rested her forehead against counter, eyes scrunched closed. The man was feeling sorry for her. She could tell. He thought she was too small, too weak, too young. He wanted to erase all her pain and put her in a school, in a home, give her a blanket and make everything alright. But he couldn't. He didn't know yet, but he was wrong. 

She would never be alright again. 

She didn't need the family or the house. When a bone breaks, it grow back thicker, stronger to prevent the same thing from happening ever again. She did not need the comfort some grief counselor could provide. What she needed was revenge.

Lieutenant Anderson's voice clicked on again. "Look kid, what's your name?"

She took a deep breath. "Shepard," she said. "My name is Shepard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters coming pretty slow, but they're coming :)

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this about 4 years ago and am re-visiting. Hopefully it's still worth pursuing, lol. Hopefully Garrus shows up, but who knows.


End file.
